Latest News - Page 1245

In a paper published in PNAS, physicists from Leiden University in the Netherlands have used a piece of corrugated rubber as a computer.

The rubber is placed in a press and then slowly crushed by it. Initially, the corrugations slowly deform before suddenly snapping into another shape. Researchers Martin van Hecke and Hadrien Bense used these snaps as bits, where the rubber buckling denotes a shift from 0 to 1 and unbuckling represents a shift back to 0.

The pair charted all states using cameras, identifying three bits. Consequently, eight possible states are theoretically possible. The system is shown to have a crude form of memory and can count to two. A video was posted to the Leiden Institute of Physics' YouTube channel showing the system's progression.

In a new study led by the University of Washington, researchers have demonstrated artificial intelligence's ability to improve lightning forecasts.

Lightning strikes led to the devastating California Lightning Complex fires of 2020, but the strikes are still relatively hard to predict. With more accurate forecasts, firefighters could potentially mitigate wildfires by getting the chance to stop smaller fires caused by strikes before they grow out of control, as well as helping to forecast severe weather systems like thunderstorms.

The American Geophysical Union's (AGU) 2021 Fall Meeting will host talks discussing the new missions, including the TROPICS, EMIT, NOAA's JPSS-2, and SWOT missions, launching in 2022.

The TROPICS mission will monitor tropical cyclones using six small satellites. As frequently as every fifty minutes, the satellites will make microwave observations of a storm's precipitation, temperature, and humidity to understand the mechanics driving the storm's intensity and make forecasts more accurate.

The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) will be installed aboard the International Space Station (ISS). It will use an imaging spectrometer to trace the origin and composition of mineral dust that makes its way into the atmosphere. This dust can affect the climate through radiative forcing (changing the amount of solar energy entering and leaving the atmosphere) and impact various ecosystems and air quality.

Since 1915 when Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity, scientists have worked on testing its limits, and with the results of this 16-year test, it still holds up.

Professor Michael Kramer from the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, led an international team to complete this test, which included using Murriyang, Australia's radio telescope at CSIRO's Parkes Observatory. The theory of general relativity describes how gravity works at large scales across the universe, but it becomes unreliable at the atomic scale, where quantum mechanics are referred to instead.

A team from the University of Central Florida (UCF) has developed the world's first optical oscilloscope, capable of measuring the electric field of light.

An oscilloscope is an instrument that graphically displays electrical signals and shows how they change over time regarding voltage, amplitude, frequency, and other factors. This new device converts light oscillations into electrical signals, then displayed on the oscilloscope.

Light oscillates significantly faster than electric fields in current technology, which oscillates at gigahertz frequencies corresponding to the radio and microwave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The increased frequency of light waves allows them to transmit a significantly higher density of information but has also been the source of the difficulty in reading its electric field.

The 2022 World Inequality Report states that one space flight emits more carbon dioxide than the lifetimes of one billion people.

The newly released report outlines the carbon costs of launching a rocket to space and compares that amount of carbon per tonne to the amount of carbon created by one billion of the world's poorest individuals over their lifetimes. The passage also mentions that the carbon footprint of the spaceflight that is being compared to the carbon footprint of the individuals is over an 11-minute space ride.

According to the report, around one billion individuals emit less than one tonne of carbon per person per year. Over a lifetime, this group of one billion individuals "does not emit more than 75 tonnes of carbon per person". This report, and specifically the comparison between the carbon footprint of a single 11-minute spaceflight and the carbon footprint of one billion of the world's poorest individuals, puts a spotlight on the unequal distribution between the carbon footprint of wealthy individuals compared to poor individuals.

Comet Leonard will be passing safely by Earth at a distance of 21 million miles, and it's currently at its closest point to Earth before it makes its way closer to the Sun.

Astrophotographer Chris Schur.

What is expected to be the brightest comet of 2021, Come Leonard, or Comet C/2021, is currently at its closest point to Earth at a safe distance of 21 million miles. The comet was first discovered by Gregory J. Leonard in January 2021, and after observing the comet more, the researchers discovered it has an extremely elliptical orbit around the Sun that takes around 80,000 years to complete. After Leonard passes Earth, it will be ejected out of the solar system for millions of years.

A galactic jet has been ejected from the only black hole that humans have ever taken an image of, and researchers believe it's shaped like a helix.

Messier 87 galactic jet helix structure.

According to a statement from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the black hole is located 55 million light-years from Earth at the center of the elliptical galaxy called Messier 87, which is the same and only black hole ever to be photographed. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory states it operated the Very Large Array and found that the jet is shaped by a corkscrew-shaped magnetic field that stretches from the center of the black hole out at a distance close to 3,300 light-years.

The annual Germinid meteor shower is happening right now as Earth's orbit takes it through a debris field left by an asteroid.

If you are living in an area that has unfortunate viewing conditions such as cloud cover, or dust, you will be glad to know that you can still participate in the viewing of the Germinid meteor shower online via NASA's livestream. NASA is live streaming the Germinid meteor shower from a camera located at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The meteor shower is expected to have anywhere between 100 and 150 meteors per hour.

While there are many meteors expected to be seen, NASA warns that the Moon will be about 80% full and may reduce visibility due to its brightness, bringing down the expected amount of meteors per hour to 30 or 40. However, the Moon is expected to set at around 2:00 am on December 14. After 2:00 am is what is being considered as the best viewing opportunity.

NASA has posted a new image on its blog that showcases a stunning spiral galaxy located 250 million years from Earth.

NASA has posted the images on its social channels and explains that the spiral galaxy is named UGC 11537 and is located in the constellation Aquilla. The Hubble Space Telescope has pointed its Wide Field Camera 3 at the galaxy and has captured the large spiral arms, as well as two prominent stars located in the foreground of the image.

NASA notes that the spikes seen on each of the stars are a result of the starlight interacting with Hubble's camera - defined as "diffraction spikes". Additionally, the space agency explains that the image showcases large amounts of dark dust clouds. This image of UGC 11537 comes from a set of observations designed to assist astronomers in measuring supermassive black holes that are located at the center of galaxies such as UGC 11537.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced to his nearly 70 million Twitter followers plans on developing technology that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Elon Musk took to his Twitter account to announce that SpaceX is currently developing a program that will focus on removing CO2 from Earth's atmosphere and converting it into fuel that will be used to power rockets. Musk ended the Tweet by asking the public to "join" if they are interested, which I can only imagine everyone will be, as there has been quite a lot of focus put on the environmental impact, or carbon footprint of rocket launches.

Musk also added that this new technology would be necessary to colonize Mars, saying this "will also be important for Mars". For those that don't know, Mars' atmosphere consists of 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, with traces of oxygen and other gases. Having technology capable of converting CO2 into rocket fuel would provide massive utility to colonists on the surface, as they would be able to perform multiple launches at a cost-efficient price.

Bitcoin has taken another hit as Wall Street opened on December 13, sending the digital asset down by around 8.4%.

Recent trend analysis indicates that Bitcoin's price has continued to decrease for the last four consecutive weeks, putting the digital currency 30% down from its all-time high of $69,000 on November 10. On December 4, Bitcoin saw a sharp 21% decrease in value before bouncing to regain around half of its value, which then led it towards today's miniature crash of 8.4%.

So, is this the bottom, or is it possible Bitcoin can continue decreasing in value? Below, I outline all of the potential supports Bitcoin may fall to if it doesn't hold around the $45,000 mark. If support at $45,000 doesn't hold, it's likely that we will see a $40,000 Bitcoin before the end of the year. While that does sound depressing if you are currently holding any cryptocurrency, it isn't a usual thing to happen. Bitcoin makes large recorrections in price before it makes massive upward movements.

Meta released the Meta Avatars SDK 9.0 on December 10, and with the new release, all Unity developers can implement the new avatar system.

Meta's new Meta Avatars SDK fully overhauls the previous avatar system. This is the fourth iteration of the avatar system from Oculus/Meta. When the Rift first launched, avatars were monochrome silhouettes. When Oculus launched the Go, it added color to the avatar system. Then with the launch of the original Quest, we got slightly more realistic avatars that included mouth animations for better communication.

The new avatars have a more cartoony art style, but with support for body-tracking to bring more expression to your digital self. The Meta Avatar system uses a custom IK (inverse kinetics) algorithm to interpret hand and controller movement and a facial animation system driven by the sound of your voice. In addition to the cosmetic overhaul, the new Meta Avatar system gives you a persistent digital persona that represents you in all Meta content. The Meta Avatar system has been used for several months by select developers. PokerStars VR, GOLF+, Epic Roller Coasters, Synth Riders, and ForeVR Bowl have been part of a private beta since Aprilthat supported the new avatars. Now, any developer working with Unity can add support for Meta Avatars.

Intel is aiming for over 10x density improvements in packaging, as well as 30-50% logic scaling improvements, as the company looks beyond classic silicon transistors. Yeah, "classic" silicon transistors... like they're going to be ancient and have dust on them soon.

We all know about Moore's Law, but Intel doesn't just want to shift the Moore's Law goal posts, it wants to grab the goal posts and propel them into outer space with thousands of rocket ships behind it. At the recent IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) 2021, Intel "outlined its path toward more than 10x interconnect density improvement in packaging with hybrid bonding, 30% to 50% area improvement in transistor scaling, major breakthroughs in new power and memory technologies, and new concepts in physics that may one day revolutionize computing".

Robert Chau, Intel Senior Fellow and general manager of Components Research said: "At Intel, the research and innovation necessary for advancing Moore's Law never stops. Our Components Research Group is sharing key research breakthroughs at IEDM 2021 in bringing revolutionary process and packaging technologies to meet the insatiable demand for powerful computing that our industry and society depend on. This is the result of our best scientists' and engineers' tireless work. They continue to be at the forefront of innovations for continuing Moore's Law".

Facebook pressed the big red button inside of Mark Zuckerberg's offices a few weeks ago, right in front of Zuck's duct-tape-covered front-facing webcam (screw your privacy, not his) when it rebranded itself amid non-stop chaos to Meta.

The rebranding to Meta saw the Facebook-owned Instagram blocking the account of the user with the handle @metaverse, out of nowhere and with no explanation. The owner of the @metaverse handle on Instagram is Australian artist Thea-Mai Baumann, who had her Instagram account banned once Meta stepped into the world.

Baumann told The New York Times after her @metaverse account on Instagram was snuffed: "This account is a decade of my life and work. I didn't want my contribution to the metaverse to be wiped from the internet. That happens to women in tech, to women of color in tech, all the time".

The new AMD/XFX BC-160 crypto mining card is now here available, packing a Navi 12 GPU, and 8GB of HBM2 memory you're looking at $2000 or so.

The new BC-160 (Blockchain Compute) has no display I/O, and features a blower-style cooler that will see these used in crypto mining farms. The Navi 12 GPU is made on 7nm at TSMC, has 2304 Stream Processors, 36 Compute Units, and is on the PCIe 4.0 x16 standard.

8GB of HBM2 memory is used on a 2048-bit memory bus, which means we'll have 512GB/sec of memory bandwidth. AMD/XFX's new BC-160 crypto mining card offers around 70MH/s for around 150W TGP, which is a little better than the Radeon RX 6800 XT at around 64MH/s... but that same Radeon RX 6800 XT is a proper gaming graphics card, not a crypto mining-only card for $2000 that is useless for anything else.

Alright, now this is interesting... EVGA is now offering up a new GPU firmware for its GeForce RTX 3080 Ti LHR series graphics cards, that unlocks crypto mining performance by up to 21%.

Reddit user @bravo_char discovered how to increase mining performance on GeForce RTX 3080 Ti LHR graphics cards, explaining that most of the RTX 3080 Ti LHR GPUs on the market have a "hidden feature" in the default BIOS that access the power limit for the card that activates when the memory load increases (which happens with crypto mining).

EVGA was made aware of this, and then offered a firmware update that boosts crypto mining on their EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti series GPUs. On an updated EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti XC3 graphics card, ETH mining went from 66MH/s to 80MH/s which is an increase of 21%.

Intel has shown off a pretty useless trailer during The Game Awards, with the new 'Intel Arc Gameplay Trailer' below:

In the video, Intel shows off a few games that aren't that popular... not running at 4K or anything special (Hitman is used as the "next-gen graphics with ray tracing" title, FFS. At the end, we get a glimpse of what would be awesome to see actually happen: an Intel Arc-based desktop gaming PC, and Intel Arc-based gaming laptop.

Intel's teased Arc desktop gaming PC looks damn cool in its chassis with an overlay of your PC readouts (CPU, GPU temps, etc) on the side panel and wicked lighting inside. There's an Alienware-style 16:9 gaming monitor in, well I guess 'Arc style' as well, and to the side what looks to be a 15-inch Intel Arc-based gaming laptop.

First off; there is a gigantic difference between the HDMI 2.0 and HDMI 2.1 standards and cables, so if you have a HDMI 2.1-enabled TV or monitor... it's very, very different to a HDMI 2.0-enabled TV or monitor.

HDMI 2.1 is capable of up to 4K 144Hz through the single cable, where HDMI 2.0 taps out at 4K 60Hz -- a very, very big deal for high-end monitors and TVs. But now the HDMI Licensing Administrator has just opened up the floodgates to all monitor manufacturers using "HDMI 2.1" on their displays when they're not capable of HDMI 2.1.

Xiaomi's new 24.5-inch 240Hz monitor was the first spotted with "fake HDMI 2.1" that just launched in China, and while the marketing materials don't push HDMI 2.1 too far, it is mentioned in the specifications with an asterisk. The only thing that this "HDMI 2.1 monitor" supports from the feature set of HDMI 2.1 is support for the TMDS signaling protocol (which is, funnily enough, part of the original HDMI 2.0 spec) but it doesn't support FRL (Fixed Rate Link) which is needed to hit higher bandwidth -- and because it doesn't -- there's no support for higher refresh rates at higher resolutions (you know, like 4K 144Hz as I mentioned above, because 4K 120/144Hz requires HDMI 2.1 and that's the big, big difference).

If you own a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S console, you truly owe it to yourself to download The Matrix Awakens experience, an Unreal Engine 5-powered masterpiece. A truly exciting tease at the future of gaming. Check it out:

The video above is new and is an awesome comparison between the Unreal Engine 5-powered The Matrix Awakens experience, and the 1999 film The Matrix. The folks at Epic Games collaborated with the makers of the upcoming The Matrix Resurrections, with SideFX, Evil Eye Pictures, The Coalition, WetaFX (formerly Weta Digital), and many others.

The comparison shows us just how good the work put into The Matrix Awakens is, and how truly next-gen Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5 and its various technologies are. On top of that, it shows the true need of next-gen consoles -- and not just a fast CPU and GPU -- but a wicked-fast PCIe 4.0-enabled SSD.